Rebecca Thomas, The Independent’s health correspondent, has been nominated for the prestigious Paul Foot Award for investigative and campaigning journalism.

Over the past year, Rebecca’s exhaustive reporting on the crisis within mental health care – both within the NHS and in private hospitals – has led to the closure of scandal-hit private hospitals, prompted a national inquiry into NHS mental health services and even helped free an autistic patient who had been trapped in mental health institutions for more than a decade because of failings at every level of the system.

The longlist for the prize – set up by Private Eye in memory of the journalist Paul Foot – said: “Thomas’s dogged campaign exposed systemic patient safety scandals within the UK’s ailing mental health system.”

The winner of the award, which received a record number of entries this year, will be announced at a ceremony on 11 June. In 2022, Rebecca was named Health and Science Journalist of the Year at the British Journalism Awards for her “revelatory” coverage of the worsening crisis in A&E departments.

See the full longlist here.